Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 28, 2026

Probe Type II Band Alignment in One-Dimensional Van Der Waals Heterostructures Using First-Principles Calculations
Published on: October 12, 2019
Conical intersection dynamics in NO2 probed by homodyne high-harmonic spectroscopy
H J Wörner1, J B Bertrand, B Fabre
1Joint Laboratory for Attosecond Science, National Research Council of Canada and University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. woerner@phys.chem.ethz.ch
Abstract:
Conical intersections play a crucial role in the chemistry of most polyatomic molecules, ranging from the simplest bimolecular reactions to the photostability of DNA. The real-time study of the associated electronic dynamics poses a major challenge to the latest techniques of ultrafast measurement. We show that high-harmonic spectroscopy reveals oscillations in the electronic character that occur in nitrogen dioxide when a photoexcited wave packet crosses a conical intersection. At longer delays, we observe the onset of statistical dissociation dynamics. The present results demonstrate that high-harmonic spectroscopy could become a powerful tool to highlight electronic dynamics occurring along nonadiabatic chemical reaction pathways.
Related Concept Videos
¹H NMR of Conformationally Flexible Molecules: Temporal Resolution
2D NMR: Overview of Homonuclear Correlation Techniques
COSY90 is the standard two-dimensional (2D) COSY experiment that...
2D NMR: Homonuclear Correlation Spectroscopy (COSY)
2D NMR: Overview of Heteronuclear Correlation Techniques
¹H NMR of Conformationally Flexible Molecules: Variable-Temperature NMR
2D NMR: Heteronuclear Single-Quantum Correlation Spectroscopy (HSQC)

